2016 A Phenomenal Year For Anushka Sharma!

2016 has been a very strange year. Except if you’re Anushka Sharma.

- Shikha Sethi

I’ve never met Anushka Sharma, but I know exactly what her Andheri penthouse looks like. Every profile piece I’ve read about her starts with a description of this room. When I walk in, she’ll be sitting on a black sectional couch with her feet up (she is, and she’s on the phone), casually dressed (in a sleeveless white top and olive green silk pants), with the sun setting in the distance (it does). It’s a little surreal, like walking into a scene on a sitcom, where you’re the only movable piece of an otherwise fixed set.

But much has changed in Sharma’s life recently. 2016 has been a phenomenal year for the 28-year-old actor, perhaps her best, with stellar performances as a female wrestler in the 300-crore Sultan, and the spiky Alizeh in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, where she friend zones Ranbir Kapoor.

Critics, I say to Sharma, often describe her as “spunky” – and she seems to take offence at this: “You can have characters who are described as ‘spunky’ but who, it turns out, have absolutely no relevance [in the film].”